The Gruen Transfer
by Acepilot6
Summary: A day in the life of the AGU gang as they go about their business, working and hanging out at the local mall. A continuation of "The Best Laid Plans". Various couples. Hope you enjoy it.


**The Gruen Transfer  
**Acepilot

AN – Alright, this is part 2 – and notably more complicated and in-depth than _The Best Laid Plans_. I hope you enjoy it – the feeling I was trying for here was a real 'episode' feeling, cutting around the day at the mall to look at what everyone was up to, as much as we're focussing on Susie and Angelica's relationship here.

Ten points to anyone who can identify what the record Susie requests Phil takes off is. It's one of my favourites.

Disclaimer – I own nothing. Trust me. I'm even renting my flat.

STOP PRESSES – Though correct when this chapter was begun, the above disclaimer has become innacurate. I now own a computer. But it's not very good.

8 - * - * - * - 8

"_Named after Victor Gruen, the designer of the worlds first shopping mall, it is the effect which occurs when the mall's deliberatel__y confusing layout makes us lose track of what we came in for, and we become impulse shoppers."_

_- Wil Anderson, Episode 1 of "The Gruen Transfer"_

Susie Carmichael shook the rain from her hair as she rushed inside, cursing herself for leaving her umbrella at her parents house. She'd been in such a hurry to leave the cloying atmosphere of her parents, still in sickly-sweet wedding-planning mode for her big brother's forthcoming nuptials, doting on their precious first ever grandchild who was a two-year-old _nightmare_ in Susie's view, that she'd forgotten the most obvious accessory of the day.

Oh well.

"Welcome," a familiar voice called to her from the nearby concierge desk, "to North City Shopping Centre. And might I say it's about damn time you got here."

She rolled her eyes and turned to face Chuckie Finster, who was leaning, bored, on the information booth he was manning. He looked surprisingly sharp in his business shirt and tie, but nothing could hide the slightly awkward mannerisms in his body language. Or, indeed, his hair, which was as messy as ever.

"Chuckie?" she gasped, walking over to the desk and leaning over it to give her old friend a hug. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Providing information, maps and telling people that I don't actually sell anything," he informed her, squeezing her tightly around the shoulders before pulling back. "It's mostly boring, but then someone comes along and asks a really stupid question and it just helps to put my life into perspective."

She smiled at him. "Finally had enough of the Java Lava, huh?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, the Java Lava finally had enough of me. Well, of all of us, really. The Java Lava's slave labour staff were informed that we would, this year, be getting out into the _real_ world, and working _real_ jobs instead of," he took a deep breath, pinched his nose and approximated a voice that was remarkably close to his mother's, "_lazing around the coffee house, pretending to work and putting off the customers_."

"Putting off the customers?" Susie asked with an arched eyebrow.

"I think that was directed mostly at Phil," he told her. "He makes better coffee than any of us but he still hasn't quite got the 'being nice to the customers' thing down pat."

"So you're working here."

"Actually, we're all working here. I lucked out with the concierge job. Tommy's in the menswear department of Casey's and Lil's working furniture there, Dil works in the electronics shop upstairs, Kimi's in some girly-girl shop up there as well and Phil's working in the record store in the basement."

"And what's the verdict on working in 'the real world'?"

"If they ever want us back at the Java Lava, we're going to demand better benefits, let me tell you. And I'll want a management position."

She grinned at him. "Good for you."

"I was wondering when you were going to show up," he told her, studiously ignoring a lost looking woman with a mall directory. "I saw Angelica earlier and she said you'd both come into town."

Alarm bells went off in Susie's head. "Angelica's here?"

"Yeah, she said she needed a 'day to recharge'," Chuckie said with air-quotes around the last part of the phrase, doing a surprisingly good job, again, of imitating Angelica. "She and some girl are here for some retail therapy."

"Some girl, huh?" Susie asked.

The issue of her and Angelica was one that she had been more than slightly torn on for over a month now. It had been a month – or so, she liked to tell herself that she wasn't counting the days but she could probably take a good guess at it – since Angelica Pickles had kissed her, on the night she moved into her dorm room. The moment that her friendship with the other girl had turned upside down, the baffling moment that she had no honest explanation for. They'd had only a few conversations since then, all of them difficult and stilted. One – the day after their kiss – stood out in particular.

"_I'm sorry, Angelica. You just…I didn't realise you…felt. That way."_

_She shrugged. "Yeah. Well, I do."_

"_I've just…I've never thought about you that way before. I've never thought about…women, that way before."_

_"I'm not asking you to think about women," Angelica corrected her. "I'm asking you to think about _me_."_

Every time she saw Angelica now, it was awkward. She'd had this kind of problem with boys in the past. The knowledge that someone wants to be more than friends…it just made things difficult.

Normally it meant phasing out a friendship, because it couldn't really be a friendship anymore, not with the constant worry about how things had changed between them.

But this wasn't nearly that easy.

"You still with me over there?" Chuckie's voice cut in on her thought.

Susie shook herself out of her stupor. "Yeah, sorry. Anyway. I should really let you get back to work." The lost looking woman was now starting to jump from one foot to the other, looking desperate for help. Chuckie groaned and rolled his eyes but nodded, handing her a centre directory, marking a few shops with a pen. "You might find things of interest in these stores," he suggested. "Enjoy your shopping day, ma'am."

She grinned at him broadly before turning to leave. The lost-looking-woman stepped up to Chuckie, looking mildly annoyed at having been ignored for so long. "Sir, I need to know where to buy an Italian flag."

"Italy would be your best bet," Chuckie returned, with a polite smile that Susie saw through in an instant. The woman laughed but Chuckie didn't laugh with her and Susie knew he'd been quite serious. "Jamieson's Sporting Goods in the northern end of the second floor atrium, just near the staircase."

Susie wondered just how bad Phil's customer service abilities were to be viewed as the bad one.

8 - * - * - * - 8

Internal conflict was something that every teenager dealt with. Mostly, for Susie Carmichael, her internal conflict had largely been centred around where she wanted to go with her life, what she wanted to do to please her, or to please her parents. Her internal conflict had rarely manifested itself in a romantic sense. She had had only one boyfriend, and everything between them had been so natural, and easy, and a _relief_, to be honest, from her conflict over everything else. Of all the things her relationship was with Phil, it was certainly never conflicted.

Lately, however, romantic conflict and she had become extremely good friends. Not entirely surprising, considering the circumstances: when your best friend suddenly wants to be in a non-platonic relationship with you, it raises some questions that you'd never thought of before.

When she was crossing the food court and saw Angelica Pickles joking and laughing with another girl, conflict reared its ugly head again.

The girl in question was somewhat shorter than either herself or Angelica, with long, chestnut brown hair and a Cook University hoodie on, but Susie didn't recognise her. Angelica was dressed in her typical oh-I-just-threw-this-incredibly-fashionable-outfit-on-at-the-last-minute-from-the-back-of-my-closet style and had a bigger smile on her face than Susie had seen in…well, a month.

The clear glass roof showed even bigger storm clouds settling in over North City and Susie felt they perfectly reflected her mood. She took one look at Angelica and the strange new girl and strode determinedly back toward the escalators, heading downstairs toward the basement.

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie…"

Chuckie Finster didn't even need to look up. "You know, you sound disturbingly like your cousin when you say my name like that."

Dil Pickles shrugged. "What can I say? Relations will always shine through. I need to borrow a tie, man."

Chuckie finally did look up so he could roll his eyes. "You know your brother works in menswear. He'd probably be the better one to ask."

Dil sighed. "Come on, Chuck. You know how that'd go."

"You forget your tie nearly every week, Dil. At some point, shouldn't it become…second nature, or something? You know – 'I'm going to work now. Got my shoes on, my pants, my boxers, my shirt, _my tie_…'" Chuckie sighed and pulled a black tie out from under the desk. As ready as he was for this – _and let's face it_, he thought to himself, _it does happen every week, so I'd want to be ready for it by now_ – he didn't want to let Dil think he was getting off easy.

"You wear boxers?" Dil asked, hooking the tie over his head and tightening it. "And they call _me_ the weird one. Thanks for the solid, C. I'll catch you later." The younger boy tore off toward the escalators.

"And no running in my shopping centre!" Chuckie called after him.

8 - * - * - * - 8

The entryway to Basement Discs was a short corridor that led off to the lowest-rent suite the mall offered. A prominent, very old sign hung over the doorway proclaiming it to be the one-stop shop for all your _good_ music needs, rather pointedly. It was the oldest standing store in the mall aside from the supermarket and was only there still due to tradition and a very well-written lease.

The last time that Susie had come here had been while shopping with Phil, and she remembered the corridor as being a disconcertingly plain beige, but it was now painted partly black. The rest of it was a mural – evidently meant to encompass the whole corridor but not finished yet – of cover-art, of pictures of notable records, of band and record label logos. The place smelled of fresh paint and she had her suspicions as to where the mural had come from.

Once she crossed over the threshold from the hallway and into the store, she was hit with music – the Beach Boy's _Surf's Up_ was playing over the small shop's PA. The place was well-organised if a little small, made up of racks and racks of records and CDs, and at the centre of it all, sitting next to the record player with his feet up and a sketch book in his hand, was her one-and-only-ex-boyfriend, Philip DeVille.

"You look relaxed," she commented, crossing the shop floor to greet him. He was up from his seat and around the counter in an instant, embracing her tightly.

"Hey, Susie. Finally made time for us little high school people, huh? We drag you away from your ivory towers of higher learning?"

She snorted. "I don't think Cook exactly counts as 'ivory towers'. Or higher learning."

"It'll get you your degree, that's what counts, Suz," he assured her. "I, meanwhile, am going to go through my life degreeless, lounging around in this fine establishment, painting the walls."

"You'll get to university if I have to kick your ass the whole way there. Cal Arts, remember?"

He shrugged. Cal Arts had been something she'd suggested to him and was a very appealing idea, but he knew that it was for people who…knew what they were doing. He just painted and drew and stuff.

"Tertiary education is a long way off and very scary, so for the moment I'm just going to concentrate on not completely failing high school," he admitted. "Anyway, how long are you down for?"

She shrugged. "A few days. I don't have class on Monday so I thought I'd come down for the weekend."

"Angelica with you?"

Her eyes shot up to his. "Why?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Well, you two were pretty attached at the hip for most of the summer, you're now going to the same college…I thought maybe you'd carpool a trip back home or something."

She let out a slow breath. "No, she's not. Well, she _is _here, but we didn't come down together, no."

He nodded, clearly not realising there was anything at all unusual about the question he'd asked and blissful in his ignorance, before turning to the record player to remove the now-finished Beach Boy's album and return it to its sleeve with a certain reverence.

"I finish at about five, if you're still around. Maybe we should get everyone together – I think we're all working the day today."

"Sounds like a plan," she agrees, stepping over to flick idly through a rack of folk records. She passed over a copy of _Tapestry _– Phil had bought her one long ago - but looked thoughtfully at a copy of _Blood on the Tracks_. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course," he said, placing a new record on the turntable, which emitted a soft hiss before commencing _Bad Moon Rising_. "It's what I'm here for. Well, actually, I'm more here to sell records, but I'll branch out this once."

She shook her head at his antics but felt oddly reassured by the normalcy of them, that things weren't at all awkward between them despite their break-up.

"It's about…well, it's about relationships, kind of."

He sat back down in his chair behind the counter and held his hands open before him. "I've got limited experience, but I'll run with what I know."

"Alright. Imagine a girl comes on to you."

He grinned broadly. "Yes, I think I can do that."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, but it's a girl you'd never thought you'd like. A really good friend. Someone you don't really think of that way. At all."

He blushed somewhat. "Uh…do those have to be completely mutually exclusive concepts? I mean…well, if we didn't occasionally think about really good friends that way, then you and I would certainly never have…well, done much of anything."

She groans. "You're not helping here, Phil. Pretend you're a girl then, okay?"

He raises a finger. "Okay, so now I'm a girl?"

"Yes."

"So is it relatively safe to assume that this person hitting on me who I don't think about that way at all really is now a guy?"

She felt herself colour. "It's relatively safe to assume that, yes," she told him, deciding that revelation could wait a bit. "So, the two of you kiss, but you throw down the rejection, because you're just a bit freaked out. But you're like…really close friends. So you still see each other."

"Awkward."

"A bit, yeah. But you stand true to your rejection – you need time to think or you've thought and you don't like it or whatever."

"I follow."

"Then you see your erstwhile-love-interest out…with another woman."

Phil sighed. "Ah." It took a moment but something occurred to him quite clearly. "Wait a moment. _You _rejected _him_."

"Yeah, I know, I know." She wasn't entirely comfortable referring to Angelica as _him_ but they were well past the point where she could just subtly slip that correction into the conversation. The Beach Boys were suddenly back, _Wouldn't It Be Nice_ crackling over the PA. "Oh, please not this."

He raised an eyebrow. "This is a classic. How can you – "

"Just really complicated and currently confusing memories, alright? Just…anything else."

He looked at her as if she had cracked up but obligingly pulled the record off the player and replaced it with another one. "Alright, this is all getting quite confusing. So, you're saying that you rejected some guy, and now you've seen him with another girl, and you're feeling jealous over it."

"Yes. That's it. Pretty close to exactly. Am I being unreasonable?"

"Are you sure you don't want him?"

"…I think so."

"Well…think harder, Suz."

Susie simply hung her head and sighed.

8 - * - * - * - 8

Lil DeVille stared at her point-of-sale monitor and sighed. The store was busy, but no-one was interested in her department today, it seemed. She supposed simply no-one bought furniture when it was raining.

She wandered the floor and resisted the temptation to lay down on one of the always-tempting bedroom sets, trying to think of anything but how boring her life was in that very moment.

"Excuse me, miss?"

She spun very quickly to face the voice, and found a nice young couple standing before her. Newlyweds, she guessed quickly. Bedroom set, probably. Couch – even more likely. Seeing big potential in them, she put on her easygoing smile and straightened her back.

"Good morning," she said, in her brightest, most painfully cheerful and fake voice. "How can I help you today?"

The young woman was looking longingly at the Jackson suite, a lovely set complete with end-tables and a very nice chest that would cover Lil's quota for the week. She allowed her hopes to rise, just a little.

"We were wanting to know where we can find the big-screen TVs," the man said, smiling broadly at the idea while his wife's look of longing for nice furniture only seemed to get more desperate.

Lil sighed. _Men_.

"Home entertainment is in the basment," she told him.

"Thank you," he said, reaching for his wife's hand. "Come on, baby. You've got to see this set I was telling you about."

From the look on her face, Lil guessed the young woman wouldn't have been that fussed if she didn't.

Lil sighed again as they left, settling back into her easy boredom. She slipped back behind the counter and was preparing to put herself to more of a challenge on Klondike when she saw something had popped up on her screen in the meantime.

When she'd been hired, it was explained to her that, though the terminals throughout Casey's could all communicate with each other through the point-of-sale software, the employees were not to use them for any means other than work. Her supervisor had given her this speech with a face of utmost seriousness and underlined the potential consequences of getting caught using the computers – ancient 486s running Windows 95 that they were – for anything considered un-professional.

Then, five minutes later, that same supervisor had shown her how to send messages to her fellow employees and set up a game of Wacky Wheels on TPC/IPX play.

The message flashing on her screen read:

**Fr: Men2- Hey – Lil? You there?**

She grinned.

**Fr: Ftr1- Tom?**

**Fr: Men2- Yeah. I just sold a guy the ugliest suit you have ever seen.**

**Fr: Ftr1- Really? How ugly are we talking here? Like that thing you wore to the Junior High formal?**

**Fr: Men2- Hey! That suit was a /classic/**

**Fr: Ftr1- Keep telling yourself that, Tommy.**

"Excuse me, miss?"

She looked up, somewhat reluctantly, from her conversation with Tommy, to see a tall, distinguished looking gentleman with greying hair. "Yes?"

"Do you have any real leather sofas?"

She raised an eyebrow and came out from behind the counter. "Yes. We have several."

"Why? Don't you know it's cruel to murder cows simply to make a couch?"

She bit back the urge to groan. "Thank you for your custom, sir."

She returned to the counter, walking away from the irate 'customer'.

Tommy had left a few messages in the short space of time she'd been gone:

**Fr: Men2- I still say that suit would have looked better if Samantha had come in a matching dress.**

**Fr: Men2- Seriously.**

**Fr: Men2- Lil?**

**Fr: Ftr1- I'm here. Had a customer. Sort of.**

**Fr: Men2 – Sorry to hear it. Chuckie dropped in before. Says Susie and Angelica are here.**

**Fr: Ftr1- Really? Hope they come in for a visit. I'm bored bored bored.**

**Fr: Men2- I don't entertain you anymore, Lillian?**

**Fr: Ftr1- No, you're extremely entertaining. In your way.**

**Fr: Men2- What's that meant to mean?**

**Fr: Ftr1- Nothing, Tommy. You're a little bit of a stick-in-the-mud sometimes. But that's cool. Embrace it. You're the solid one.**

**Fr: Men2- The 'solid' one?**

**Fr: Ftr1- Sure, the solid one. Phil's the Weird One, Dil's the Wild One, Chuckie's the Smart One, Kimi's the Happy One, and you're the Solid One.**

**Fr: Men2- Makes me sound like a brick wall. What does that make you?**

**Fr: Ftr1- Dunno.**

**Fr: Men2- The pretty one?**

Lil watched her cursor blink with interest.

**Fr: Men2- Anyone in your department at the moment?**

**Fr: Ftr1- No.**

**Fr: Men2- Wacky Wheels?**

**Fr: Ftr1- You know you'll lose.**

**Fr: Men2- Bring it on.**

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Don't you ever _clean_ this place?"

"Only on weekdays," Phil said, without looking up. It was hardly neccesary, after all – Angelica was not someone you had to see to really appreciate the presence she brought into a room. He added a few quick lines to the sketch he was finishing before he rose from his seat, stepping out from behind the counter again. "Good to see you, Angelica."

"Nice, DeVille. I almost didn't detect the sarcasm there."

"There wasn't any. Call it a cosmic twist of fate or whatever, but I actually have come to enjoy your company. To a degree."

"Words of praise indeed," Angelica said, leaning against a rack of records. A girl – somewhat shorter than both he and Angelica, brunette, wearing a Cook University hoodie with the hood down – was flicking through the second hand jazz.

"Your friends have better taste than you do," Phil told her, nodding to the girl. "Anything I can help you with?"

"Thanks, but no, just having a look," the girl said. "I'm Melissa."

"This is Phil," Angelica told her, waving her hand vaguely in his directon, as if the record player he was standing next to might have been named Phil instead.

"Ah, Phil DeVille? I've head a bit about you," Melissa told him.

"Really?" he responded to Melissa, but faced Angelica with his eyebrow raised. "Probably all lies."

"Yeah, you wish," Angelica scoffed. "Anyway, DeVille – what the hell are you doing working here? No shifts going at te House that Finster built?"

"We got kicked out," he explained, vaguely. "It was a thing. We needed life experience. Load of crap. But hey, this is a pretty sweet gig too." He turned away from her to change the record on the player again – placing the Wilson Pickett back in its sleeve somewhat delicately, he replaced it with a well-worn but still serviceable copy of _Tapestry_ that Susie had been looking at earlier.

"You'd have thought your taste in music would have gotten better working in a place like this," Angelica opined. "Seriously, DeVille. There's been some really good music made in the last ten years."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Angelica just groaned, clearly deciding that if he hadn't learned by now, he never would. "You need a new girlfriend, DeVille, if only to bring you up to date. I mean, look at the way you dress."

Phil looked down at his dark-blue, button-down shirt and black pants and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with the way I dress?"

"It's so _boring_."

"It's _camoflauge_," he told her. "I blend perfectly into the background. See?"

She had to admit he had a point.

"I'm working on the girlfriend thing," he told her. "I'll get there when I'm ready."

"Hmm."

"Speaking of," he said, crossing back to the other side of the counter and tapping his fingers lightly to _I Feel the Earth Move_, "what do you know about this mystery guy of Susie's?"

Angelica's head shot up. "Mystery guy?"

Phil shrugged. "Well, you know, you guys are really close and go to the same school and everything. I figured if anyone would know, it'd be you."

Angelica felt the blood drain from her face. No, it couldn't be. It just couldn't be, surely. "I haven't heard anything from her about some guy. What makes you think there is one?"

He shrugged. "Well, she was in here talking to me about some guy she was having problems with."

Angelica made a jump to a hopeful conclusion. "Really."

"Yeah. Stuff about rejecting someone, then seeing him out with a girl and feeling..." Phil trailed off, watching as Melissa, merrily oblivious to his and Angelica's conversation, checked a copy of a Miles Davis album for scratches. "...jealous. Shit_. _It's _you_, isn't it? You're the guy!"

Angelica bristled at that description. "I'm not a _guy_, DeVille, and you'd do well to remember it."

"No, you're not a guy. But you're who Susie was talking about, aren't you? All that stuff about having never thought about someone in a romantic sense. Wow. Holy _shit_. I can't believe it."

"Keep your voice _down_, DeVille," she growled. "Forgive me for wanting to keep this a bit quiet."

"Are you...are you on a date?"

Angelica rolled her eyes. "No, I'm not on a date. To the best of my knowledge, Melissa is not gay."

"But you are?"

She groaned. "I don't _know_. I like Susie. A lot. I'm...I'm attracted to Susie. I don't know if that means I'm gay or if I just...like Susie."

Phil shrugged. "Okay. So this isn't some attempt to make her jealous or anything."

"No, this isn't an attempt to make her jealous. How stupid do you think I - " she paused, mid-rant. "She's jealous?"

Phil hung his head. "Alright, this is going in strange, strange directions and I'm not entirely sure I'm keen on it. Yes, if I was to interpret what she said before, then yes – I think she's jealous. That said, she also said this was about a _guy_, so..."

"There's no guy," Angelica said. "There better not be a guy."

"Well, at the moment you're not involved with her in any significant way, either, so tread carefully, Pickles."

"I'll tread however I feel best, DeVille – we're talking about my love life, not yours. In fact, why am I even talking to _you_ about _my_ love life at all? It's really none of your business."

"Maybe because you need to talk to someone about this," Phil suggested. "And I'm the first perrson you have. And it might be _your_ love life, but Susie is still one of my best friends, and I don't particularly want to see her hurt."

Angelica tried to stare him down with a fiery vengeance, but that hadn't really worked on him since he was about 14 years old.

"Alright, fine. I'll tread carefully."

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Susie?"

She almost missed it in the crowded food court, but Susie did manage to look up at the sound of her name – just in time to catch sight of none other than Kimi Finster.

On crutches.

"Kimi? What the hell happened to you?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

Kimi seemed to be waiting until she had limped a bit closer before answering, so Susie quickly closed the gap between them. She moved to help Kimi but the younger girl seemed to have the crutches down pretty well, and was moving efficiently – just slower than normal.

"Eh. It's a long story. Suffice to say it was mostly my fault," Kimi explained, "and the story doesn't exactly paint me in a fantastic light."

"Ah," Susie nodded along, as if understanding. She honestly didn't, but now wasn't the time to really get into that. "Did you break it?"

"Nah, it's really a lot less dramatic than it looks," Kimi informed her as she lead them toward a sandwich shop halfway around the food court. "According to the doctors if I use the crutches for a few weeks I should be fine, they're just worried about me aggravating it. So the last few weeks have, needless to say, been _very boring_. How've you been?"

Susie shrugged. "Well, certainly not bored."

"So – it's true? All those stories about the exciting life of the college student?" The man working the sandwich shop didn't even ask Kimi what she wanted – they simply traded money for food and drink with a flirtatious smile bouncing between them, before Kimi and Susie took a nearby table, to save Kimi from having to walk too far.

"To a point. A lot of work, really. Staying on top of it is never boring."

Kimi looked disappointed. "And that's it? Just...staying on top of the work? No wild parties, no legions of boys?"

"My personal life at the moment is troubled and confusing enough without getting drunk to add to it." She looked up from the table. "Can I ask you a question about...I dunno – relationships? Romance? Love?"

Susie could have sworn that Kimi paled slightly. "Uh...sure, I guess."

"Do you ever think that there are people – some people with whom you...perhaps...no matter how confused and interesting your feelings are toward them – that you just shouldn't _cross that line_ with?"

Kimi bit her lip. "Nothing happened, Susie, I swear."

Susie had to run the last few seconds of conversation back in her head, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't make the link between what she had said and where Kimi had taken things. "Sorry, what?"

"Seriously. I mean, yeah, we kissed. Once. Maybe twice. But I didn't _mean_ for it to happen, you know. It was just...I got caught up in the moment. I mean, you know. Obviously you know, you've been there. But I...I didn't want anything to effect the friendship between us, Susie, so I said, _no_, and I put a stop to it. After the third kiss. And that one in the car-park, that was a whole other thing. Maybe five. Five kisses. Tops."

Years of being friends with Angelica and Lil had Susie reasonably well trained to comprehend fast talking, but this was taking it to a whole new level. She was able to join most of the dots, though. "You kissed Phil?"

Kimi's eyes widened. "We were having two different conversations there, weren't we?"

"I think so," Susie confirmed. "What's going on with you and Phil?"

"Nothing. Well, except for the aforementioned...encounters. I don't know what I was thinking. He's _your_ ex, Susie, and that's strictly-speaking off limits. Traditionally."

"Why?" Susie asked, genuinely curious.

Kimi shrugged. "I don't know. It just...you know, that's how it is. You don't date your friends ex."

Susie snorted, incredulous. "Okay, two things – for one, he's my _ex_. Secondly, he's your friend, too. It's not like I brought him into the group and you stole him or something. Phil and I had a relationship that ran its course and ended amicably. If you guys want to go out, then by all means – you're both very good friends of mine, and I just want to see you both happy."

Kimi nodded, slowly. "Okay. You're taking this much better than I thought you would."

"You're still in high school," Susie explained. "There are different – very stupid – rules in high school. But in the real world, the key word in the sentence 'he's _your_ ex' is the 'ex' part, not 'your'."

"Thanks for the clarification," Kimi said, before pausing, thoughtfully. "So, wait a minute. If you _weren't _talking about me and Phil..." she trailed off and grinned broadly. "You've got a new guy!"

"No, I don't. I really don't. It's a hypothetical situation. Based on someone else. Someone you don't know. They go to Cook."

"Whatever, Susie. You want somebody. Someone close to you. Someone you're afraid of crorsing lines with."

"Kimi - "

"How many lines do you have left to cross, Suz? I mean, let's face it, you already had a relationship with one of your best frineds – or did it put you off the experience? Are you having second thoughts about having another one? It's not Harold, is it?"

Before she could continue to deny that the situation had anything to do with herself, Susie heard herself utter, "God no."

"Good. Because that would have just been...disturbing. I ran into him the other day. I still say he's not quite right. I mean, anyone who is _that _obsessed with Angelica can't be."

"Hmmm," Susie said, not trusting herself to voice an opinion on _that_ issue.

She did not think her feelings for Angelica qualified as an obsession in the strictest sense. What she was actually obsessing over were her own feelings. The fact that Angelica was the focal point of those feelings was a complete coincidence.

"Is it Chuckie?"

Susie laughed, good naturedly. "No. Chuckie's sweet and everything, but...I dunno."

Why _couldn't _she be attracted to Chuckie? Chuckie was a nice, sweet – if slightly neurotic – guy who was a good friend. Why did she have to be attracted to the slightly more complicated package that was Angelica.

Was she attracted to Angelica?

She was jealous of whoever the girl who made Angelica smile was. But that was just because _she _used to be able to make Angelica smile. And she missed that. She missed having that friendship, having Angelica in her life. There was a time when that thought would have caused her a sharp sense of disbelief, but now they had been friends too long, and she knew Angelica too well. When they were younger Angelica had been so...one dimensional. But seeing her over the course of high school – especially over the last year and the summer after it – she had seen Angelica Pickles grow from being someone obsessed with fashion and boys and coasting through high school on a photographic memory to becoming someone vaguely mature and infinitely more...emotive. Still brutally honest, still bitingly sarcastic and still, definitely an over-the-top drama queen, but she had grown up around those qualities, and they had matured with her.

It occurred to her that, if Angelica was a male, she wouldn't be having this conundrum. At all.

"Pity. You two would be pretty cute together," Kimi voiced, bringing her back to reality. "And if you got married, you'd be my sister-in-law. Oh well."

"I think there are rules about dating your _sister's ex_, anyway."

Kimi stuck her tongue out at Susie. "In this fantasy, you'd be so moved on you'd be _married_. I think my brother would seriously have something to say about you wanting Phil kept single."

"Does he still kiss well?"

Kimi blushed. "Susie!"

Susie waited her out.

"Made my toes curl," Kimi admitted. "Which, with my current injuries, makes kissing him a bit of a risky proposition."

"Well, you've got to take the risk for the reward."

8 - * - * - * - 8

Chuckie Finster bit into his sandwich idly, watching as his friend scribbled madly on a pad.

"Tommy, isn't the point of the lunch break to...y'know – relax, eat?"

Tommy laughed. "Eh. I just spent the half-a-shift playing Wacky Wheels with Lil over the shop's network. Trust me, I get enough relaxation at work. For me, lunch-breaks are a time to get some _real _work done."

"What is it this week?" Chuckie asked.

"Script that Jason brought me. Media Studies assignment, we need to start filming it _next week_ so I'm trying frantically to work out my camera map and lighting. Thing with a guy chained to a bedhead. I think it's going to be an all-night shoot – just so we can get in all the night-time scenes and then there's _one_ the next morning where the girlfriend comes in."

Chuckie nodded slowly at his friend's rapid-fire dialogue. There were few things that got Tommy geuinely excited these days – he tended to view the world through a slightly laconic filter – but filmmaking topped that short list.

"Is it going well?" he asked.

Tommy shrugged. "Could be better, but I think it's starting to come together, yeah."

"Does that mean you might have some free time tonight?"

Tommy shrugged. "I kind of have plans...some friends of mine from St. George's are having a party. I was meant to go along."

Chuckie nodded. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I think the whole gang might be getting together tonight – Susie and Angelica are in town, and we're kind of going to try all catch up." He withheld his personal opinion – which was less than glowing, to say the least – about Tommy's 'friends' from St. George's Road High School. Not that the school was bad. Hell, North City High was hardly a shining paragon of virteous youth, but Tommy's new 'film' friends screamed 'drugs' to Chuckie, and he was fairly certain he wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Oh, sure," Tommy said. "I'll come along for that. The film guys can wait."

"Hmm," Chuckie hmmmed.

8 - * - * - * - 8

Susie found herself sat on a leather sofa in the malls 'classier' area. She had noted that the public seating was nicer nearer to the 'ritzier' stores, and thus had planned her shopping day accordingly, ending up in the part of the mall where she couldn't afford to buy anything just in time to collapse from exhaustion. She wasn't generally one for retail therapy, but today had proved a valid exception to that rule.

She had her eyes closed, contemplating her current situation, when she heard a familiar voice say, "So. Susie, Susie, Susie."

She looked up and saw Phil DeVille looming over her, sad smile on his face.

She raised an eyebrow. "So, Phil, Phil, Phil. Kimi, huh?"

He didn't even flinch. "So, Angelica huh?"

Her jaw dropped. "_What_?"

"Come on, you think you're the only one who visits me?" he asked, taking what was clearly mock-offence. "Angelica brought _Me-_lisss-_aahh_ by Basement."

"And she told you?"

"More or less," Phil confirmed.

Susie sat in silence, contemplating this latest turn of events. "What did you think of her?"

"Angelica? You know what I think of Angelica, Suz."

"No, not Angelica. The girl. Melissa."

Phil shrugged. "Dunno. She seems nice enough. Cute as a button. Likes jazz, I can repsect that. Bought a professionally recorded bootleg of a Miles Davis Quintet show from the Filmore East, so she's not only got taste, but she's an _enthusiast_, so I can really respect that."

"Not what I meant, Phil."

"I know. But I don't think you mean what you think you mean."

She slapped him on the back of the head. "Thanks for confusing the living daylights out of me, Phil."

"You know what I meant," he smirked. "Besides, we went over this. You're not interested in Angelica, remember? You rejected her."

"She actually talked to you about this?"

"Eventually," he said. "We had a good chat. She said she kissed you."

"She did," Susie agreed. "We were having fun, laughing and joking and...she kissed me." She turned on him, quickly. "I hear you kissed Kimi."

"We're not talking about me," he eased the subject back to where he clearly felt it belonged. "You're jealous of Melissa. Why?"

She sighed. "I don't know."

"Could it be that you want Angelica?"

"I...I don't know. This morning I'd have just said no...but now...I'd just never really considered it as a possibiltiy, you know? The idea that there might be more to my relationship with Angelica had never occurred to me before."

"I gather it kind of caught her by surprise, too," Phil pointed out.

Which was a reasonable point, Susie thought.

"Why me?"

Phil snorted. "Susie, I know we broke up and everything, but...have you _seen_ you? Or met you, for that matter? You're pretty much one of the most awesome people on Earth. If you were a guy I'd turn gay for you. I think."

Susie let that roll around in her head for a second. "Thanks, Phil. If thanks is the appropriate thing to express there."

"I think it probably is." Phil held out a hand. "Come on, I'll buy you a coffee."

Susie took his hand and allowed him to pull her up and begin propelling them toward the nearest coffee house in the mall. He wrapped an arm around her hunched over shoulders. "Look, Susie, this is all going to be fine. You'll get through this. Either you get together with her or you stay friends. I don't think you're going to lose her as a friend or anything if that's what you're worried about. I think you're just stuck in a bit of an...awkward phase right now. But, if that's the decision you ultimately make, then the two of you will just fight through it. You're both simply too stubborn to let one little kiss ruin your friendship."

"True," Susie agreed. "I guess, ever since it happened, I just haven't been able to think through everything quite so...clearly. Detachedly."

"What have you been thinking through?"

"Lots of things," she said. "What she means to me. If a relationshp with her is something I could pursue. Whether or not I'm actually _physically_ attracted to her."

"Is it possible to _not _be physically attracted to Angelica? When she wants to be that woman is sex on legs. Two flat whites, regular size. Two sugars in one, none in the other," Phil switched tones instantly, from describing a desirable woman to ordering coffee without pausing to draw breath.

Susie snorted. "Really. And you had these feelings for her while _we _were going out?"

"This has nothing to do with feelings," Phil argued. "This is just pue chemistry. Angelica is hot. It's a fact of life."

"Alright, alright. She's kind of easy on the eyes," she conceded. "It doesn't change everything else, though. She's still _Angelica_, with all that implies."

"Yeah, but you love Angelica," Phil pointed out. "She's your best friend."

"True."

"Coffee up," the barista called over to them, and they obediently collected their cups and moved over to a table.

"You know," she said as they sat down, already nervously playing with her coffee with a long-handled teaspoon, "I caught myself thinking before that if she was a guy, Angelica would be pretty much everything I was looking for in someone. I mean, she's smart, she's sophisticated, she's funny – not funny like you're funny, but funny

in her own way. She's grown up a lot – she's determined..."

"I don't see a lot of that in her," Phil admitted, "but then she doesn't open up to me the way she does to you."

"Can you imagine the look on my parents faces, if I walked in with Angelica on my arm?"

"Could it be any worse than me?" Phil asked.

Susie almost spat out a sip of coffee in laughter. "Oh, god. That was totally _your _fault, though. You fell alseep."

"Yeah, but who agreed to have sex with me at _four in the morning _when we woke up?"

"Your logic confused me."

"I was right – they totally thought we had. Imagine if we'd gone through all that suspicion and disapproval and hadn't actually had the illicit good times to show for it."

"I told you you should have climbed out the window."

"That would have been so rude of me, though – defile their youngest daughter under their own roof and not cook them breakfast. There was really no other option."

"I don't think I'll ever forget the look on my mother's face when she came downstairs and found _you _frying tomatoes on the stove."

"It wasn't that unusual."

"You were _naked_, Phil."

"I had my boxers on!"

"Still not going to make the best impression on my mother."

"You think Angelica will cook for you in her underwear?"

Susie smiled. "Maybe if I ask nicely."

Phil sobred somewhat. "I think there's very little she won't do for you if you ask nicely, Susie. She's pretty hung up on you."

"Yeah? Then what's she doing here with...the girl?"

She could practically hear Phil's eyes roll. "You'd need to talk to her about that. I've already gotten way, way too involved."

"You never could resist getting in the middle of things, DeVille."

"Wouldn't be me if I could."

"So, what exactly is happening with you and Kimi?"

"We kissed."

"Five times, from what I hear."

"Six. She thinks I don't know about the one when I fell asleep on the bus."

8 - * - * - * - 8

Chuckie nodded sagely as he listened to the exceptionally irate customer that stood before him. The trick was trying to find the right moment to make agreeable noises, and then the right moment to nod and smile, and finally, the right moment to say, "Oh, I know."

"I don't have to put up with this kind of treatment," the old man told him. "I come here for _customer service,_ young man, and your staff would do well to remember it."

Chuckie sighed. "Sorry, sir. I might point out that they are not _my _staff and you do need to direct your complaints to the appropriate department of the store in question."

"Then what are you called the _concierge_ for? You get my complaint to the right people."

Chuckie nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, and watched the old man walk away in a huff.

More than once he'd had to deal with complaints at the Java Lava about everything from a refusal to split the bill through to a fight over the fact that another customer's child had urinated on the floor, and one of the tables felt this entitled _them_ to getting their drinks free, for having to put up with the fuss and the stench.

There were advantages to being the owners son in situations like that. For one thing, you had a great deal better job security. And thus a greater available vocabulary when dealing with self-entitled idiots.

"The customer is always right," Lil DeVille chanted, mindlessly, from where she leant against the other end of the service counter.

He grinned at her and chanted back, "The customer is generally very wrong." It was their mantra. "How was your day, Lillian?"

She shrugged. "The rain drove in the mallrats, therefore only so/so. But I had a couple of real customers, which was nice. And I absolutely _thumped_ Tommy at Wacky Wheels."

"As ever," Chuckie saluted her. "I wish there were fun things to do as concierge."

"Other than snark at the customers?" she asked. "Eh, I'm sure you'll survive somehow."

"Yes, but it's a hard life," he said. "What are you doing now you've finished work?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. Was thinking about just going home and crashing out."

"If you're not too tired from your stressful day of retro gaming, Susie and Angelica are in town. We're all catching up for drinks this evening. You game?"

"Hell yes. I'll be there with bells on. Java Lava? Or The Arcade?"

"The Arcade," Chuckie told her. "We're making it a less parentally-monitored night out."

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed. "Is Tommy coming?"

Chuckie shrugged. "Hard to say with Tommy. He said he might. He actually had other plans. What do you think of these guys from St. George's Road, anyway?"

Lil pondered this for a moment. "What guys, specifically?"

"The filmmakers he's been hanging out with. The ones who go to St. George's Road High."

She shrugged in return. "I don't know. I haven't really met them."

Chuckie groaned in frustration. "Does he seem...different, to you, lately? Not quite right?"

"I don't know. He's a lot more focussed on film and stuff, if that's what you mean. But...eh. He's still the same old Tommy, right?"

Chuckie thought maybe he was just going mad. "The same old Tommy," he muttered, shaking his head slowly. "You already finished?"

"Yeah, I was allowed to clock off early today, owing to the total lack of actual customers. Peta is working through to close. When are you off?"

"Not until half-past-five. Not that anyone would really notice if I wasn't here."

"Oh, someone would. Who would the idiots come and complain to? How would the little children find the bathrooms?"

"By reading the signs?"

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Hey."

Phil looked up from his sketchbook for the third time that day, and watched Kimi limp into the store on her crutches. _Where Angels Sing_ was playing on the turntable, the end of what would probably be his last record of the day. He was pleased to have timed it so well to reach the end of the fourth side before closing.

"Hey," he returned. "You okay?"

She nodded. "I am. How're you?"

"Fine," he said. "Unless you know something I don't."

"No, to the best of my knowledge you should be fine."

"Good, good."

They were silent for a moment – Phil watching her from his chair, her watching him from where she leant against the blues/soul rack.

"One of us should probably say something before the mall closes," he suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed. "Do you actually want to go out with me?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"Do you actually want to go out with me? Or are you just looking for someone to make out with?"

"Can I have both?"

"Phil, be serious here."

"I was."

She sighed. "I like you, Phil. You're sweet and funny and loyal and one hell of a kisser."

She paused, uncertainly.

"Keep going," Phil encouraged as the song ended, and he closed down the point-of-sale computer. "Tell me more about myself."

She glared at him. "And sometimes you can be a real jerk."

He grinned. "Want to come to The Arcade with me tonight?"

"Aren't we all going as a group, anyway?"

"Think of it as insurance. If you don't like the full Phil DeVille dating experience, you'll still have six other people to hang with," he suggested, patting himself down for keys, phone and wallet, before rising from his seat, powering down the stereo and PA for the evening. "Kimi, you know me. You know this. It's just us, going out. Except now we get to make out occasionally."

She rolled her eyes. "The master of tact, Phil."

"I try," he offered as he rounded the counter.

She sighed. "Alright. I'll give it a shot."

"Your confidence astounds me."

She pushed herself off the record rack and into his surprised embrace as he tried to catch her. He pulled it off – just barely – in time to very nearly drop her again as she kissed him, hard.

But that was enough incentive to try and keep her upright. If he dropped her he couldn't enjoy this.

When they broke apart, he smiled at her broadly. "So, is that a yes?"

She smiled up at him. "It's a yes. Come on, let's get out of this stupid mall. I've got to get home and get all pretty if I'm going to be going out with you tonight."

He shrugged. "I'll share a top secret of guydom with you – as long as you're there, we're generally not really that fussed."

She smacked him lightly on the head. "You've got to learn when to keep your mouth shut if we're going to do this dating thing."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Now, if we want to actually get out of here in time to get to the Arcade before it closes, we'll have to move faster than you do lately."

She let out a cry of protest as in one swift move he stole her crutches.

"What's that meant to be? Incentive to get me to walk faster?"

"No," he said, grabbing her by the legs and hoisting her up onto his back. "God, you're a stick."

She thought about protesting this treatment – and statement – but decided to enjoy it while it lasted and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Heigh-ho, Silver. Away."

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Attention please, ladies and gentlemen," a familiar, nasal voice echoed through the expanse of the North City Mall. "The mall will be closing in approximately ten minutes, and will re-open at 9.30am tomorrow. We thank you for your patronage and hope to see you again at your earliest possible convenience."

There was a pause, before an equally familiar, but less-nasal and distinctly female voice offered, "Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letter M and the number 16."

The syllable, "Lil!" was just audible before the PA was cut off entirely.

"They've given Chuckie a public address system," Angelica bemoaned, aware Melissa wasn't aware of the danger of this but feeling it needed to be shared anyway. "The world is surely about to come to an end."

Melissa laughed at her. "Thanks for bringing me, Angelica. It was fun to get away from college for a while."

"I figured you could use the relief. I'd take you home for dinner but I think that would put you off ever coming to this city again."

Melissa grinned, and was about to comment when the sound of a throat clearing came from behind them.

They turned to see Susie Carmichael standing before them, a blank expression on her face, staring at Angelica. "Can we talk?"

Angelica met her stare without flinching. "I don't know. Can we?"

Susie groaned at Angelica's comment, but didn't rise to the bait, and simply waited. Angelica sighed and turned to Melissa. "I'll catch a ride back with someone – I think this might take a while. Thanks for the ride down."

Melissa looked between the two girls with a concerned look on her face, but obviously felt it was not her place to intervene here. "Alright. Call me if you can't get a ride and I'll come get you," she assured Angelica, before nodding to Susie. "Susie Carmichael, I presume."

Susie was taken aback by this. "How did you know my name?"

"I've seen your picture," she told her. "Angelica has more than a few photos of friends in her room."

Susie was torn between pleasure that Angelica valued their friendship enough to keep pictures including her in her dorm, and hurt at the fact that this Melissa had gotten into Angelica's room.

"I'm sorry, I don't know your name," she said, trying to find some way to fill the suddenly awkward silence. It was a lie, technically, but they didn't need to know that.

"Melissa Johnson," she told Susie. "Angelica and I are in the same Accounting class."

"A pleasure," Susie offered her hand, feeling sick to her stomach. Jealousy, she decided, bit.

"Likewise," Melissa shook her hand, before turning and walking toward the nearest exit. Angelica and Susie watched her go.

"That was the most painfully polite display I've ever seen in my life," Angelica noted. "What the hell is wrong with you, Carmichael?"

Susie glared at her. "What do you think?"

"Hard to say," Angelica said. "Give me some options."

"So, what's it like, Angelica? I thought you'd changed. That you might have...grown, as a person. I wanted you to have, really. But..."

"But what?"

Susie didn't want to say it. She knew it was hypocritical, she knew it was wrong – in many ways it was really none of her business. But she had to say it. She'd come too far to stop now.

"...What did that night in my dorm room mean to you?"

Angelica sobred immediately. "What?"

"Were you joking? Was it all just a momentary experiment or something? Or did you mean what you said the next morning?"

Angelica bit her lower lip, clearly torn on answering the question that Susie had asked and answering the question lying beneath the surface of it.

She surprised them both by choosing the latter.

"Melissa and I aren't on a date," she told Susie. "She's just a friend from accounting who's from New York and had nothing to do this weekend. That's all there is to it."

Susie was silent. What, after all, could she say to that?

"I meant everything I said. I'm falling in love with you, Susie. I don't know...what that means for the two of us. Other than the fact that I want you in my life – I haven't been having much of a time of it the last few weeks."

"I haven't either," Susie admitted. "It's hard to suddenly lose your best friend."

"I haven't gone anywhere."

"You've gone into a whole different class of friend," she told Angelica. "I couldn't be around you, with this whole...thing, hanging between us."

"Well, that's you being problematic, not me being absent," Angelica pointed out. "I'm sorry I kissed you then, like that. I'd meant to work up to asking you out. Once you were more comfortable with the whole idea. I was still kind of coming to grips with it myself. But it's out there now, and there's nothing I can do about it. And while I wish I had done it differently, I can't say I'm sorry that you know how I feel about you."

"You never were afraid to express yourself," Susie agreed.

"Well, this time, I was terrified." Angelica's face gained a quietly hopeful look. "You were jealous of Melissa."

Susie sighed and nodded. "Yes, I was."

"Why?"

"She made you smile. I used to make you smile."

"You can still make me smile, Suz."

Susie chuckled. "I'll bet."

"Susie, having you in my life is one of the best things for me, you know that. You think I would have grown into the person I am today without _you_ here? Without you refusing to put up with my crap, refusing to scrape at my feet?" Angelica scoffed. "You're pretty much the only reason I grew out of being a self-entitled brat."

"You grew out of that?" Susie asked.

Angelica rolled her eyes. "I could be worse. And it's thanks to you that I'm not. I like that you make me a better person, Susie, and I don't want to lose you from my life."

"Why do you...why do you want me, then? What changed?"

Angelica sat down heavily on a bench – they were near the exits, and the seating here was nowhere near as cushy as the posh areas of the mall. But anything would do so her legs didn't have to hold her up during this conversation. "I don't know. I guess I'd never considered the idea that maybe I _could_ be attracted to you. You were just this totally platonic being in my life. Then...the morning you came into school, after you slept with Phil for the first time – there was something different about you. Maybe I just finally came to realise that you were...someone who felt and wanted and needed the same things the rest of us did. And when that changed, I saw it. And then I was jealous of Phil...and then I realised what I wanted was you."

"You're not gay, Angelica," Susie pointed out.

"I don't see how its your role to label me," Angelica snapped. "But it's irrelevant. No, I've never been attracted to another woman. But I've also never felt for a guy what I feel for you. I want to be around you – you make me happy. I think you're beautiful. I think I can make you happy. You're my best friend and the only person I think I could possibly put up with for the rest of my life – partly because everyone else I've ever known falls largely into the category of blithering idiot, but you're so much better than that. And if you're willing to give me a shot at it, I think I could show you that we could be really good together."

Susie sat down next to her. "I don't know, Angelica. I just...I just need to come to terms with the idea. It's a pretty startling thing to suddenly take someone you see every day and just have this...change settle in on you."

"I understand," Angelica said. "I had a year to come to terms with the idea. I guess I haven't afforded you the same opportunity."

"Well, I don't know if I'm there quite yet," Susie admitted. "But I do know that I need to have you...around. That I'm going kind of crazy with you just disappearing from my life. So...if that means letting myself come to terms with whatever it is I feel or could feel for you, then...that'll be what I do."

"It's a start," Angelica said. "Can I kiss you?"

"Maybe," Susie told her. "I don't know if it's much of a consolation – but while I'm still not thinking of...women, that way...I am, at least, thinking about you."

Angelica leaned across the short distance between them and kissed her softly. Susie didn't pull away this time, but allowed herself the moment. Neither of them so much as moved beyond their lips – Angelica gripped the bench they were seated on as if afraid she was about to fall off – but it was all they needed.

"Sorry," she said, when they seperated. "Couldn't reisist."

"I'm sure," Susie offered, intending for it to be sarcastic but very aware that it wasn't, really.

"You coming to The Arcade this evening?"

Susie nodded. "Be a bit rude if I didn't show up – I think we're kind of meant to be the guests of honour."

"Sad day when they need _us _in town to have a party," Angelica noted. "Well...as long as we're being open about things, you'll need to be aware that I'm not about to back down, here. I'll give you time and everything to try and work out your feelings. But I'm not going to stop pursuing you. Or kissing you."

"You wouldn't be Angelica if you did."

"And it would be a bad thing if I wasn't Angelica?"

Susie nodded. "Very, very bad indeed."

Angelica kissed her again.

8 - * - * - * - 8

_To be concluded in "Something To Tell You" - in the meantime, reviews would be ever appreciated.  
_


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